“We may as well return to the house, Mr. Hartright,” said Miss Halcombe; “the information we want is evidently not to be found.”

She had bowed to Mr. Dempster, and was about to leave the schoolroom, when the forlorn position of Jacob Postlethwaite, piteously sniffing on the stool of penitence, attracted her attention as she passed him, and made her stop good-humouredly to speak a word to the little prisoner before she opened the door.

“You foolish boy,” she said, “why don’t you beg Mr. Dempster’s pardon, and hold your tongue about the ghost?”

“Eh!⁠—but I saw t’ ghaist,” persisted Jacob Postlethwaite, with a stare of terror and a burst of tears.

“Stuff and nonsense! You saw nothing of the kind. Ghost indeed! What ghost⁠—”